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A screenplay penned by Anthony Shaffer and featuring a horror icon and the lead actor should have been a dream project for director Robin Hardy during the filming of The Wicker Man over 50 years ago.

Although today it is revered as a cult horror masterpiece, the degree of misery it caused the production team is now revealed in previously unpublished correspondence and script drafts.

The Plot of The Wicker Man

This 1973 movie centers on a puritan police officer, played by Edward Woodward, who arrives on an isolated Scottish isle looking for a missing girl, only to encounter sinister local pagans who deny she ever existed. the actress was cast as an innkeeper’s sexually liberated daughter, who tempts the God-fearing officer, with Lee as the pagan aristocrat.

Production Tensions Uncovered

But the creative atmosphere was tense and fractious, according to the letters. In a letter to Shaffer, Hardy stated: “How could you treat me like this?”

The screenwriter had already made his name with acclaimed works like Sleuth, but his script of The Wicker Man reveals Hardy’s brutal cuts to his work.

Extensive crossings-out include Summerisle’s lines in the final scene, originally starting: “The girl was but the tip of the iceberg – the visible element. Don’t blame yourself, it was impossible you could have known.”

Beyond the Creative Duo

Tensions boiled over outside the main pair. A producer commented: “Shaffer’s talent has been offset by a self-indulgence that impels him to prove himself overly smart.”

In a note to the producers, the director complained about the film’s editor, Eric Boyd-Perkins: “I don’t think he likes the theme or style of the film … and feels that he is tired of it.”

In a correspondence, Lee referred to the film as “alluring and mysterious”, despite “dealing with a garrulous producer, a stressed screenwriter and a well-paid but difficult director”.

Lost Documents Found

A large collection of letters about the film was among multiple bags of documents forgotten in the attic of the old house of Hardy’s third wife, his wife. There were also unpublished drafts, visual plans, on-set photographs and financial accounts, many of which show the struggles experienced by the film-makers.

The director’s children Justin and Dominic, currently in their sixties, used these documents for an upcoming publication, called Children of The Wicker Man. The book uncovers the extreme pressures faced by the director during the production of the film – including a health crisis to bankruptcy.

Family Consequences

Initially, the movie was a box office flop and, in the aftermath the disappointment, Hardy left his spouse and their children for a new life in the US. Court documents reveal Caroline as an unacknowledged producer and that Hardy was indebted to her up to a large sum. She had to sell the family home and died in 1984, in her fifties, battling alcoholism, unaware that her film later turned into a global hit.

Justin, an acclaimed documentary maker, described The Wicker Man as “the film that messed up our family”.

When he was contacted by a woman who had moved into the former family home, inquiring if he wished to collect the sacks of papers, his initial reaction was to propose destroying “the bloody things”.

But afterward he and his brother examined the sacks and realised the significance of what they held.

Revelations from the Documents

His brother, a scholar, said: “Every key figure is represented. We discovered the first draft by Shaffer, but with his father’s notes as director, ‘controlling’ Shaffer’s overexuberance. Due to his legal background, he did a lot of overexplaining and his father just went ‘edit, edit, edit’. They sort of loved each other and hated each other.”

Writing the book provided some “closure”, Justin stated.

Financial Hardships

His family never benefited monetarily from the film, he explained: “The bloody film has gone on to make a fortune for others. It’s beyond a joke. His father agreed to take a small fee. Thus, he missed out on the profits. The actor also did not get payment from it either, although that he did his role for no pay, to leave Hammer [Horror films]. Therefore, it’s been a harsh experience.”